The last decade has seen some real challenges on the high-street. As the continuous advent of new technologies shift and create consumer behaviours, retail businesses have had to pivot their approach to in-store and online engagement. Not everyone has been successful in doing this, and the loss of over 400 medium-to-large UK retail businesses in the last decade can attest to that. However, many legacy retailers have transformed their businesses to become major disruptors in their sector, creating new engagement opportunities that surprise and excite both new and established consumers.
CREATING CONSUMER BEHAVIOURS
However, it’s not all bad news for retailers. By capitalising on the power of this disruptive force, and understanding the role that technology now plays in consumer engagement, many companies are riding the waves of success in this evolving era. As PWC reports, Uber dropped off its billionth global ride within six years, Netflix streams 125 million hours of content worldwide each day and 90% of US respondents surveyed claimed to be Amazon shoppers. These companies succeeded not by adapting their businesses to adhere to consumer demands, but actually changed the way consumers engaged with businesses by creating new consumer behaviours.
LEGACY REVOLUTION
Bricks-and-mortar stores are different, and creating new consumer behaviours are harder to achieve where legacy demands that stores act in a certain way – often brand heritage can be a disadvantage in a way that newer brands such as Uber, Netflix or Amazon aren’t as impacted by. According to PWC, shoppers want a seamless shopping experience both online and offline. However according to their findings, how this is delivered to them differs. In-store, consumers expect experiences, with knowledgeable staff to guide them through their purchase decisions, whereas online they are looking for convenience. Some of our clients have begun addressing this, such as Starbucks with their ambient, in-store experience with accessible Wi-Fi and extended menu, paired with an app to expedite your coffee purchasing for those on the move. Nike offers a running club, where consumers can join other like-minded athletes to jog around the city together, paired with a popular fitness tracking app that in itself has created a new type of consumer behaviour.
THE OMD RETAIL EXPO
Throughout October, OMD EMEA is running an internal initiative at our headquarters in London, aimed at addressing these challenges and capitalising on the opportunities within the retail sector. The OMD Retail Expo is a four-week programme of talks, training initiatives and thought-leadership sessions, designed to empower our agency teams, and subsequently our clients, to become disruptors of their respective industries. We will be tackling some of the most pertinent trends in the retail industry, presented by some of the leading experts in the market. We will also be running our very first Retail Expo Start-Up Village, focusing on shoppable customer content, in-store experiences online, and utilising neural networking to optimise consumer feedback. We will welcome behemoths from the digital world who are already disrupting the retail sector, including Google, Amazon, Oath and Facebook and bring together our very own OMD and OMG specialists to inspire everyone to become disruptors in their field; including social commerce, affiliate marketing and mobile retail. Stay tuned for more updates throughout October and November!
DISRUPT OR DIE
With Business Wire predicting that the global retail industry will be worth 28 trillion USD by 2019, the size of the prize is huge. As new, bolder companies come into the market and disrupt the legacy thinking, slower brands are missing the opportunity to pivot and failing. But with that comes even greater numbers of these new, bolder companies and consumers’ expectations are continually evolving with technical transformation. Only those that adapt and disrupt will survive.
Hello and welcome to this week’s OMD FWD! Despite it being officially summer you can’t blame us for saying “Winter is coming”…as this week Facebook rolled out a special Game of Thrones photo filter for the season finale (don’t panic no spoilers included!).
Facebook has also been making some changes to the platform, moving towards TV-like content after seeing higher engagement from serialised publisher content, blocking advertising on pages that share fake news and withdrawing some of the less business-focused ad formats. Meanwhile, Amazon continues to rise in the ranks of the online giants, expanding its programmatic offering and moving into the FinTech space. However, Walmart and Google are partnering to challenge Amazon’s ascent by taking on Alexa in the voice-shopping market. It also appears that Alexa may face some other intruders in the future…kids!
Do you think you have an idea that could turn you into a tech titan? Perhaps involving smart homes or self-driving cars? Take a look at Uber’s first pitch to get some ideas on how to do it!
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
If you see anything FWD worthy in the week ahead, please share using #OMDFWD
Hello and welcome to your weekly OMD FWD!
Reality is stranger than fiction with printed submarines and robots in the workplace, but fear not, they are not here to steal our jobs. You can now say ‘adios’ to being lost in translation during your holiday with this real-time translating earpiece. Moment marketing becomes easier with Facebook launching natural language processing in Messenger 2.1, enabling brands to scale their experiences on the platform.
On another note, Google was named the world’s healthiest brand and is now trialling autoplay videos in search results, which could pose opportunities for brands. Amazon is a contender to turn the digital duopoly into a troika as the company pledges to become an ad platform leader. Also, Arianna Huffington raises the bar for Uber’s next CEO.
While you wait for next week’s OMD FWD, check out the best iPhone and iPad apps of 2017.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
If you see anything of FWD worthy in the week ahead, please share using #OMDFWD
Hello and welcome to your friendly, neighbourhood weekly FWD!
As Comic-Con fever has taken over this week, the digital galaxy has been lit up as the tech giants take on their foes! While Facebook tackles fake news by preparing to let users pay for their favourite news content, Google is hunting down fraudulent ads and YouTube is going up against online extremism. There is also a new army of giants being built, this time from AI, that hope to protect us from future cyber-attacks.
Back on planet earth – have you ever wondered how to monitor your pets’ fitness? You can now measure it playing fetch with a high-tech rubber ball. And you’ll never go hungry in an Uber again as start-up Cargo aims to launch an in-Uber vending machine, giving new meaning to food on the go!
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
and finally, The Rock shows us all how to get the best out of Siri
If you see anything of FWD worthy in the week ahead, please share using #OMDFWD
This week momentum has been building around Google’s reported plans to introduce its own ad-blocking feature, in both the mobile and desktop versions of Chrome. At first glance, the feature seems counter-intuitive, since Google’s annual online ad revenue exceeded $60 billion, yet it is clearly a defensive move. The focus is on the improvement of user experience and ultimately the reduction in fast growing third party ad blocking software. Elsewhere, at Facebook’s F8 conference, augmented reality continues to gain prominence, as they launched their strategy and intent for developing the Metaverse.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
As ever, please tag and share anything you spot with #OMDFWD.
This week momentum has been building around Google’s reported plans to introduce its own ad-blocking feature, in both the mobile and desktop versions of Chrome. At first glance, the feature seems counter-intuitive, since Google’s annual online ad revenue exceeded $60 billion, yet it is clearly a defensive move. The focus is on the improvement of user experience and ultimately the reduction in fast growing third party ad blocking software. Elsewhere, at Facebook’s F8 conference, augmented reality continues to gain prominence, as they launched their strategy and intent for developing the Metaverse.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
As ever, please tag and share anything you spot with #OMDFWD.
Amazon Go is a bricks-and-mortar grocery shop due to open to the public in 2017. The Seattle-based store will enable people with an Amazon Go app ‘just to walk’ out of the store without the need to wait in line to pay or check out. Amazon said that it started working on the concept four years ago by bringing together technologies found in self-driving cars (such as computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning) to create a store. The technology used in-store is able to detect when products are taken or returned to the shelves, keeping a track of them in your virtual cart. After picking up what you want in the store, your Amazon account will automatically be charged and receive a receipt. Powered by artificial intelligence this is a huge development for the future of retail and in-store experiences, which have been struggling to compete with e-commerce. It will be interesting to see how other high street brands react to this development in 2017.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
And finally, if you’re feeling ambitious but stuck for inspiration for Christmas…
As ever, please tag and share anything you spot with #OMDFWD.
Until now Amazon has only sold its voice-controlled devices in the US. However, they have confirmed its virtual assistant Echo speakers are heading to the UK, Germany and Austria. The machines can answer questions, control other internet-connected devices, build shopping lists and link to dozens of third-party services including Spotify and Uber. Experts say they appeal to early adopters’ sense of curiosity but tend to be harder to sell to others, potentially due to the raised concerns about the use of listening technology. With an estimated five million speakers already sold and Google working on their own artificial-intelligence-powered speaker to be launched later this year, it appears the mass market is finally ready to bring such technology into the home. Currently the most common smart home device is the thermostat, so we’re excited to see how this product develops.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
As ever, share what you spot using #OMDFWD
Facebook wants to be known as a place to search for mentions of current news in hopes of drawing more public chatter that normally ends up on Twitter. With that in mind, Facebook is now seeing 2 billion searches per day of its 2.5 trillion posts. That’s compared to 1.5 billion searches in July 2015 and 1 billion in September 2012, a 33% climb in just 9 months. While more posts and search queries could open up monetisation opportunities through paid search ads, Zuckerberg cautioned this would not be anytime soon.
Whilst Facebook recruited 60 million users this quarter compared to Twitter’s 3 million, their users are not accustomed to fleeing to the platform to proactively post publicly about current events. Facebook’s goal will now be to highlight why users should bring this type of conversation to the table. As ever, please share anything you spot with #OMDFWD
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
- 84% of Facebook’s total ad revenue comes exclusively from mobile. That and other gems in their Q2 financial review and how the platform will make you talk in the future
- Uber is pouring $500m into its map service, aimed at challenging consumer reliance on Google Maps
- The total number of paid clicks on Google grew by almost 30% year on year – that and other insights from their revenue report
COOL
DEEP READS
- What’s the trump card to pull in a presidential race? The marketing strategy, obviously
- How Kickstarter pushed crowdsourced investments into the mainstream and generated more than $5bn in the process
- Given Snapchat has purchased Bitmoji, there are some implications for brands and marketers to explore
Finally, the US army could be about to have their own hoverboards and Kanye could be the creator of your next Ikea bookcase.
Almost overnight Nintendo’s Pokémon GO (PoGO) has taken augmented reality, a viable technology to create immersive and incredibly desirable customer experiences, from a niche market to a mass.
Pokémon GO is already outstripping Tinder on app installs. It has more daily active users than Twitter with people spending 43 minutes a day on average playing it, having a higher dwell time than WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat. Pokémon Go is seeing more than double the industry average retention rate with 7 out of 10 people who downloaded the app returning the next day.
It has already been dubbed ‘a cultural phenomenon’ and a saviour for Nintendo. The demand for Pokémon GO saw Nintendo’s shares surge by a quarter in value on Monday.
The tidal wave of participation has already inspired other businesses to become part of the show.
Entrepreneurs are building new revenue streams. Gamers are offering 1-4 hour ($20 per hour) shifts so the gameplay doesn’t have to stop while you are at work. If you are pressed for time, Pokémon Taxi services are at hand to take you to Pokémon stops and locations. Maybe we will see a UBER-Pokémon Go partnership.
Huge Cafe in Atlanta is across the street from two Pokémon Go ‘PokéStops’. They have paid $49 to buy in-game “coins” that can be traded in for 40 in-game “lures”. These can be ‘attached’ to PokéStops and work as smoke-signals to attract Pokémon and users. Each ‘lure’ works for 30 minutes and attracts rarer and more powerful Pokémon to the area, and in turn gamers.
Here are five reasons why you should start thinking about Pokémon Go brand opportunities:
[ctt template=”1″ link=”39g_7″ via=”yes” ]Total shares of ‘Pokemon Go’ online content rose by 535% in a 4 day period @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
That means publishers and clients with relevant content have already captured some of the 11 million+ shares from consumers. Considering this looks set to be a consistent source of ongoing traffic, there is a massive opportunity that exists for brands!
[ctt template=”1″ link=”fT8Zr” via=”no” ]#PokémonGo on Facebook shows continuous growth– 21K players have shown interest in events & page likes have increased +131% over the weekend[/ctt]
Have you considered Facebook content around Pokémon to put your brand into the conversation?
[ctt template=”1″ link=”3DiRF” via=”no” ]#PokémonGo opens up a new world of location-based marketing – did you know 10,000+ people are interested in the ‘London massive lure party’? [/ctt]
A quick search on Eventbrite also shows everything from a Pokémon 5k run to bar crawls. The creative potential seems only constrained by our imagination and the time to start thinking about it is now.
[ctt template=”1″ link=”HB6UT” via=”yes” ]#PokémonGo appears to lend itself (if done well) to non-gaming topics like travel, dining and fashion @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
For example, Pokemon Go fashion by Cosmopolitan reaches 70.6k shares & restaurants are also being impacted.
[ctt template=”1″ link=”9qOAb” via=”no” ]Google Trends monitors a breakout of search queries for ‘Pokemon Go Tips’ rising 140% in the first 24 hours to over 5,000% by the 5th day[/ctt] Could your brand fill the demand / supply content gap with something that speaks to your audience?
There’s plenty of traffic and social shares going on – #gottacatchemall!
What does this cultural phenomenon mean for your brand? Need more information or interested in exploring Pokémon branded opportunities – contact us at [email protected]